A compilation and discussion of the changes contemplated, inspired and completed by the citizens of neighborhoods and/or cities around the world.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.

Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has"

Margaret Mead, Anthropologist(used with permission)

"If you don't like the news .... go out and make some of your own !!"

Wes "Scoop" Nisker, Newscaster

INTRODUCTION

Government is a slow and tedious process. While it often includes citizen and neighborhood involvement, non-governmental, private organizations have created movements and interesting groups which can create positive change in our cities and towns.

I am fascinated by the way groups are created and how they influence public decision making. This blog merely recognizes them and forwards the description of these groups from their own websites.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Shelterforce

Shelterforce is the nation’s oldest continually published housing and community development magazine. For more than three decades, Shelterforce has been a primary forum for organizers, activists, and advocates in the affordable-housing and neighborhood revitalization movements.

National Housing Institute, an independent nonprofit organization that examines the issues causing the crisis in housing and community in America
These issues include poverty and racism, disinvestment and lack of employment, safety, education, and breakdown of the social fabric. NHI examines how these and other factors affect people as they try to build safe, viable neighborhoods. NHI searches for what does and does not work in community-building. In our 30-plus years of existence, Shelterforce has become the leading publication for community-building professionals and other stakeholders in creating vibrant communities.

We are dedicated to providing the tools (information, analysis, resources) for advocates, activists, and community members to organize their communities, rebuild their neighborhoods, and create decent housing and living-wage jobs for the families who live there.
Shelterforce began as a “how-to” publication for tenant activists

Over the years, as inner-city neighborhoods experienced an onslaught of disinvestment, crime, and family disintegration, the focus has changed. During the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Shelterforce began to examine a wider range of community-building issues, always with the goal of empowering individuals and groups to take control of their communities so that they can effect real change.

Shelterforce has established itself as a vital link in policy development—providing clear and understandable analysis of important policy issues (as well as concise descriptions of rules and regulations) to grass-roots activists while providing input from the grass-roots to local, state, and national policymakers.

As a part of the National Housing Institute, Shelterforce is driven by NHI’s vision of once-devastated communities rebuilt by empowered residents.
Founded by grass-roots activists such as tenant organizer and legal services lawyer John Atlas and Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, the executive director of New Jersey Citizen Action, NHI’s board is composed of community-based organization representatives and individuals devoted to economic and social justice.